Mexico City (Proceso):
When Alberto Escorcia Gordiano decided to dedicate himself to social network
analysis about three years ago, he thought that he entered in a “calmer” world
that he could “control.”

However, he started
receiving death threats that forced him to leave the country twice. He even had
to change his address after two individuals forced the door of his apartment
open the night June 9. The police told him that they were “probably thieves,”
reports Escorcia in an interview with Proceso.

- What part of your
work could set off these attacks? he’s asked.

- I don’t really
publish very severe things, but I do show that the cyber attacks and threats
are coordinated operations; They’re not just two or three accounts spreading a
rumor. My graphs and articles show that they are the product of two or three
thousand organized accounts that have a purpose and an impact.

On his website
LoQueSigue he revealed that an army of 75,000 bots — fake accounts on social
media controlled by computer programs impeded the protests for the
disappearance of the 43 normalistas from Ayotzinapa. Escorcia also documented
the attacks launched from these accounts against journalists and showed that
they reactivated in Alfredo del Mazo’s campaign for governor of Mexico State.

He also documented
links between trolls accounts, famous for threatening and harassing
journalists, including Carmen Aristegui, Álvaro Delgado, Proceso reporter;
Héctor de Mauleón, Denise Dresser, and American journalist Andrea Noel. These
accounts “woke up” on the eve of the last state elections and made a dirty war
against Delfina Gómez and Josefina Vázquez Mota.

“Something
that would seem like a rumor, I make it visible. It’s like with the government
spying: for a long time it was denounced by activists, until they had evidence
and they could demonstrate it,” he adds.

Escorcia explains that coordinating tens of
thousands of bots involves the hiring of dozens of operators — who program the
accounts and relaunch discussion topics — at a high level of sophistication. In
other words, these methods can’t be done by just anyone.

“All the political parties use them, the PRI
especially; The PAN with (Rafael) Moreno Valle, and I’ve even detected that
Ricardo Monreal (from Morena) used them,” he says.

Hidden
Attackers

Botnets remained “dormant” for months, but
reactivated as the Mexican state elections approached: they boosted the
messages of Alfredo del Mazo from the PRI and participated in defamation
campaigns.

In news portal sinembargo.mx, Escorcia documented
that eight out of ten massive bot attacks were carried out against Delfina
Gómez. “On election day and the day previous, there were 17 trending topics
against Delfina,” he says.

During the campaign, these networks amplified the
dissemination of both true and fake news. They were particularly active on
April 11, when a helicopter threw leaflets over Texcoco municipality — a Morena
bastion in the state — signed by a non-existent group of narco-traffickers. The
bots spread that news, and a few days later boosted another piece of fake news
that linked that group with the former mayor Higinio Martínez Miranda.

They also activated this past June 3 — the day
before the election — when a group of unknown persons left bloody pig heads and
crosses at the doors of Morena’s headquarters in the municipality of
Tlalnepantla.

“The Mexican government responds to people
organizing on social media with spying, repression and internet censorship. One
day a researcher is going to realize there’s a relationship between the dirty
war and the bots. Everything that happened with Alfredo Del Mazo, which was
brutal, certainly influenced some people,” he estimates.

The activist explains that in Mexico there are four
main groups of trolls: The Underground — the most violent group who send death
threats with the victim’s name spelled out with bullets, the Legión Holk and
the Legión Científica made up of large numbers of teenagers, and the
Ingenieros, the oldest that changed course since “they practically don’t send
threats but make Trending Topics for companies.”

“They’re like cyber-mercenaries. Of the testimonies
I’ve collected, they operate from troll centers that work for various parties
and companies. I doubt they plan the attacks. According to my research, the
agencies that hire them are the ones who design the campaigns. It may be the
Ministry of the Interior or the state governments,” he adds.

The threats online follow the same pattern: a small
account launches the message, and then larger accounts boost it, details the
activist, and although there is no evidence that the same person or entity is
behind the bots, trolls and fake news portals, he notes that those three
elements are usually triggered at times that coincide.

“Mental
Hell”

Proceso interviewed Escorcia for the first time in
October 2014. At that time, he had enthusiastically developed an interactive
map of cases of disappearances in Mexico. He described it as a “Wikileaks of
the disappeared.”

His features now are more drawn. The last 2.5 years
have been a “mental hell” for him.

“I’m very tired now. I hardly published anything on
my website. I don’t have the energy I used to, I don’t go to protests anymore.
I think it’s drained me. And when I realize the objective was to sow fear, it
gives me more courage. Because I am very afraid.”

On December 5 2014, in the middle of the protests
for the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students, Escorcia gave an interview to
journalist Carmen Aristegui. Almost 400 threats flooded in from Twitter and his
website was attacked.

“You have to understand how it is: your phone
doesn’t stop ringing, they curse you, send you pictures of dismembered bodies,”
he says.

After that interview, death threats became part of
his daily life. And when one of the trolls doxxed him and published his address
and phone number online — after he documented the troll networks behind calls
to loot shops during the gasolinazo protests, the virtual violence became
reality.

[Instead of arresting my attackers, the city government
asks whether or not I am working as a journalist]

He suffered assaults and harassment: individuals
entered his building asking about him, between January and February they rang
his doorbell every night, one day they forced open his neighbor’s door and on
at least three occasions men with handheld radios followed him on his way to
the subway.

Mexico’s Troll Bots Are Threatening the Lives of
Activists

Until recently few people took the attacks on social
media seriously. That incomprehension then cast doubt on Escorcia: They
wondered, in the midst of murders of journalists and activists, if his case was
legitimate or even real.

“More serious things happen. I can’t compare myself
with Javier (Valdez, the journalist assassinated on May 15 in Culiacán).
Someone knocked on my door and another killed him. Obviously my case is a
lesser priority and I understand. But the torment stays with you, and it’s been
three years.”

While this was happening, the PGJDF’s investigation
(the attorney general of Mexico City) remained stagnant. Last May 12, when he
went to the agency’s offices for a routine appearance, he noticed the officials
had misplaced key evidence that identified people behind the accounts sending
threats, including Daniel Carlos Penagos García, hiding behind the alias
Perrito.

He
deduced that the authorities had stopped investigating his case, which passed
to the Special Prosecutors’s
Office for Crimes Against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE — Fiscalía Especial
para la Atención de Delitos Cometidos contra la Libertad de Expresión).

“So if they fail to investigate them and then
activate them to attack their political opponents, they are already part of the
system. Maybe I have false hope that they will be stopped.” he laments

1:26 if you are not a taliban, hezollah, jihadista, Al Qaeda or worse, un pinchi joto, no harm may happen to you, specially if you are not tryng to buy IEDS or pressure cookers or ICBMs, no harm will be done to you.

@2:56 lol I agree with everything u just said. Media is the way ppl are being CONTROLLED just My opinion.Everywhere I go I see people stuck on there phones Or tablets and for the most part what people read THEY believe. Most journalists and news outlets don't really care about the truth and most civilians don't even care to question what they read or even care about the source of the information or the intentions of the source

John McAfee internet security expert and selfmade billionaire wanted in Belize.for.murder, keeps traveling around the world trying to make a monetary killing again, schooling young disciples in his fine arts.--KaSperSkY the russian internet security titan is also being accused of being a russian tool unleashed on the unsuspecting american citizens, while US internet geniuses slept all night and all day.